青年考古学家 Joshua J. Thomas 的新书 Art, Science, and the Natural World in the Ancient Mediterranean, 300 BC to AD 100 于2021年12月底由牛津大学出版社出版。本书以镶嵌画、壁画、纸草等文物为基本材料，讨论了希腊化时代艺术中体现的动物与自然知识，是研究这一主题的首部综合性专著，可补充学界对于相关文本史料的既有认识。需要注意的是，作者使用了阿尔特米多鲁斯纸草（Artemidoros Papyrus）等有真伪争议的史料[1]生物学史家 Ragnar Kinzelbach 也同样认真地对阿尔特米多鲁斯纸草中的动物做了研究，但他的专著 The Animals of the Artemidor Papyrus: An Indian Embassy to Rome 要等到2022年底才能问世。。
原图书简介：
The Hellenistic Period witnessed striking new developments in art, literature and science. This volume addresses a particularly vibrant area of innovation: the study of animals and the natural world. While Aristotle and his followers had revolutionized fields such as zoology and botany during the fourth century BC, these disciplines took on exciting new directions during Hellenistic times. Kings imported exotic species into their royal capitals from faraway lands. Travel writers described unusual creatures that they had never previously encountered. And buyers from a range of social levels chose works of art featuring animals and plants to decorate their palaces, houses and tombs.
While textual sources shed some light on these developments, the central premise of Art, Science and the Natural World in the Ancient Mediterranean is that our surviving artistic evidence permits a fuller understanding. Accordingly, the study brings together a rich body of visual material that invites new observations on how and why knowledge of the natural world became so important during this period. It is suggested that this cultural phenomenon affected many different groups in society: from kings in Alexandria and Pergamon to provincial aristocrats in the Levant, and from the Julio-Claudian imperial family to prosperous homeowners in Pompeii. By analysing the works of art produced for these individuals, a vivid picture emerges of this remarkable aspect of ancient culture.
作者简介：
Joshua J. Thomas is an Alexander-von-Humboldt Research Fellow at the Institute for Classical Archaeology at LMU Munich. He was formerly the Lavery-Shuffrey Early Career Fellow in Roman Art and Archaeology at Lincoln College, Oxford. He holds MA, MSt, and DPhil degrees from the University of Oxford. His research focuses on the historical interpretation of the art and visual cultures of the Hellenistic and Roman worlds. He is also a member of the excavation team at Aphrodisias, a Greek city in south-west Turkey.
注释
| ↑1 | 生物学史家 Ragnar Kinzelbach 也同样认真地对阿尔特米多鲁斯纸草中的动物做了研究，但他的专著 The Animals of the Artemidor Papyrus: An Indian Embassy to Rome 要等到2022年底才能问世。 |
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